Acoustic characteristics of Greek vowels: Age and gender effects.

A number of studies have focused on the acoustic characteristics of Greek vowels. However, it can be observed that differences in the methodology have led to contradictory findings regarding mainly the quality of /e/ and /o/ and the effects of stress (e.g. Arvaniti, 2000, 2007; Fourakis, Botinis & Katsaiti, 1999; Nicolaidis & Rispoli, 2005). Additionally, the study of vowel production by children has been neglected. The current study presents the acoustic characteristics of Greek vowels, produced by adult and child speakers. In total, 60 subjects were recorded. The adult group comprised 20 males and 20 females, aged between 18 and 50, while the child group comprised 20 children, 10 boys and 10 girls, aged between 8 and 10. The speakers were asked to produce a carrier phrase including a CVCV word, where C1 was a fricative and V1 was one of the five Greek vowels (/i, e, a, o, u/). All possible fricative-vowel combinations were recorded, in stressed and unstressed syllables. The aim of this presentation is to report age and gender related differences during the production of Greek vowels. Findings indicate age related differences in vowel duration and age and gender effects on vowel space. The gender effects that have been revealed cannot be attributed to anatomical differences only. Arvaniti, A. (2000). The Phonetics of Stress in Greek.Journal of Greek Linguistics1(1), 10-34. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/jgl.1.03arv. Arvaniti A. (2007). Greek phonetics: The state of the art.Journal of Greek Lingusitics, 8, 97–208. Fourakis, M., Botinis, A., & Katsaiti, M. (1999). Acoustic characteristics of Greek vowels. Phonetica, 56(1-2), 28-43. Nicolaidis, K. & Rispoli, R. (2005) The effect of noise on speech production. An Acoustic study. Studies in Greek Linguistics, Proceedings of the 25^th Annual Meeting of the Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Philosophy, Aristotle University, 7-9 Μay 2004, 415-426.